Crock-Pot Mexican Beef & Veggie Soup

So walking through the produce department of the grocery store I came upon this…

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I was intrigued. I had never seen it before. Didn’t know what the Caldo Soup Mix was but I figured I could wing it or come up with something with the ingredients. As I did my googling I found that basically you took all of these ingredients except the lime and pepper and throw them in a big pot with typically either chicken or roast (large uncut meat) and cook em into a soup (often in a certain order).

Well I wasn’t sure how that would work with a crock-pot, so we would need to improvise and adapt. Also in the Caldo Soup Mix included a weird vegetable I had never seen. Looking it up, apparently it’s not appetizing, so we fed it to the next door neighbor roosters. However, everything else was fair game. This seems like a great idea to put together your odds and ends veggies together. I even grabbed a random slab-o-beef out of the freezer to use with it.

In our mix besides the unappetizing veggie that became rooster food, included a huge carrot, zucchini, small head of cabbage, potato, cilantro, green pepper and the lime. I added 2 more potatoes, a yellow onion, corn and the slab-o-beef ended up being boneless ribs. This became Mexican Beef and Vegetable Soup (Caldo de Res).

Now for a authentic Caldo de Res you are placing the items in with minimal chopping. Peel the potatoes and onions, but place full cobs of corn in and the meat is not chopped. In my land of small children I did large chopping, instead of fine chopping but still got the pieces into a size that was manageable. Since the ribs were already cut I didn’t need to cut them further (and it worked out really well). I also had no cobs of corn on hand, as I don’t buy corn on the cob off season, so I just used canned corn. Everything else was fresh though. I absolutely love using cabbage in soup, it’s one of my favorite veggies to sneak in because it cooks down so well my kids don’t even realize they’re eating it. They loved cooked carrots and cooked potatoes. The Zucchini wasn’t obvious Zucchini so they ate it as well. You could also use tomatoes, and other fresh veggies to aim for what your family will eat. I would stick with either boneless chicken or boneless beef or pork. Boned meat takes longer to cook and then you would have to pull it out to debone.

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Comments

Hi Sarah love this version of caldo cooking. I would never have thought of using my crock pot! But out of curiosity what was the vegetable that was in the package that was fed to the neighbor’s roosters? Thanks!

I’m trying this recipe for the first time. However, I don’t have everything so I’m only using the meat, broth, carrots, cabbage, salt, and pepper. If I have room in about an hour I will put the potatoes. Here’s to a good meal…:D